Mary shows us how to follow Jesus &#8212; Hamilton

WCR PHOTO | GLEN ARGAN

Msgr. Jack Hamilton was the main celebrant at the Aug. 14 Mass marking the vigil of the feast of Mary's Assumption.

August 16, 2011

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

August 16, 2011

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

SKARO — The Virgin Mary offers Christians of every age "a beautiful example of unwavering faith," Msgr. Jack Hamilton said in his homily at the 93rd annual Skaro Pilgrimage.

Mary had "a confident reliance on God no matter how outrageous God's plan might seem at first," Hamilton said. "In this she is truly blessed and so are we."

Hamilton, vicar general of the Edmonton Archdiocese and pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Sherwood Park, was the main celebrant at the Aug. 14 Mass marking the vigil of the feast of Mary's Assumption. Dozens of priests joined in him in concelebrating the Mass.

"The Church honours Mary today because of what she did: She heard the word of God and observed it," he said.

The essential elements of Mary's discipleship were her belief in God's power to save, her hearing of that call to her personally and then her following it, he said.

"We need no other example than Mary's than to know how to follow Jesus."

Quoting the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Church, Hamilton concluded, "Her job was to allow Jesus to do his job."

Mary, he said, was not a great personage, but rather "a humble, uneducated adolescent in a dusty backwater town in a subjugated country." Despite that, her "yes" to God allowed to touch and forever change human history.

Because of what Mary has done, we too can play our part in God's story, he said.

"Mary is the perfect mirror of our own salvation. She is the promise of what we as Church are called to be and, God willing, what we will become."